She Lived
by The Hermione Granger Fan Club
Summary: A fic set in an alternate universe where Eva took the bullet in the arm. She lived. But was this the way it was meant to be?


It's a scenario some of us know all too well. The X5s, the oldest eleven years old, the youngest only nine, moving down a corridor. One of the nine-year-olds, Eva, runs in front, holding a gun. Tension gathers in the air. It's kill... or be killed.   
  
They stop. Eva stands in front, holding out the handgun, unable to see against a blaze of light. There is a gunshot and Eva falls-  
  
Wait.   
  
Eva halts inches from the ground, shakily suspended there.   
  
Stop.   
  
The scene stops completely, like a tableau in a play. Nobody breathes or moves.   
  
Go back.   
  
Eva is back on her feet, holding out her gun. Lydecker's bullet hasn't been fired yet. Everyone in the corridor is suspended in time.   
  
Then-  
  
Somewhere in the universe, in some far-off celestial body with complete control over reality, the scene seems to split in two in a haze of light. In one situation, it continues the way we all know it- Eva is shot dead and the X5s escape through a window.   
  
In the other, Eva moans in pain and drops to her knees. She has been shot in the arm and is in terrible pain. But... she is alive.   
  
The X5s are herded back to drills. Eva, sobbing quietly with the pain, is taken to the infirmary along with Max, who is going to be the guinea pig for a new medicine that has been found. It's called 'Tryptophan'.   
  
Let's continue the scene.   
  
* * *   
  
Twelve-year-old Eva sat up on her bunk. She had used to be so quick to move in the mornings. All that had changed when she was about ten. Now, all she wanted to do was lie in bed.   
  
A bullet scar in her upper left arm was throbbing again. That meant it was going to rain today.   
  
"Get up!" yelled Zack from the corridor, hammering on the doors of the small rooms with his fist. "Up! It's terrain uniform today! Assemble in the quad after breakfast!"  
  
"All right," moaned Eva, cupping her head in her hands. "I'm up, I'm up..."  
  
"X5-766, I need to talk to you!" said a voice. She looked up, finding Jondy at the door. Jondy was using her military voice. She shut the door and came to sit down on Eva's bed.   
  
"Ugh, Jondy, I swear these mornings get earlier and earlier. Didn't we only have to get up at five when we were kids?"  
  
"Stop complaining, Eva. 'Sides, if I know you, you're going to be running along to everyone's rooms, helping them find their clothes, talking politely with them, sending them on their way and then getting in trouble yourself because you're late. You're a doormat, Eva. You might as well have WELCOME tattooed on your forehead."   
  
Eva chose to ignore this and said, "Where's Max? Is she sick?"   
  
"Maxie's still getting dressed."  
  
"You two stay up all night again? How long does that make it now?"  
  
"Yes and fourteen days in a row with no sleep at all. I can't speak for Max, but I'm not even drowsy."  
  
"I am never going to know the trick you two seem to have established of being able to visit each other's rooms at night without ever getting caught."  
  
"Old habits die hard. C'mon, come with us. Be early for once," said Jondy. Eva considered this.   
  
"OK."  
  
"Good girl," said Max, entering the room. "Let's go."  
  
"Hang on, I'm not even dressed yet!" interjected Eva, who ran around her room trying to find her gear. Max and Jondy loitered by the door while Eva got dressed, then all three left together.   
  
"I mean, what do you have to talk about that's so damned interesting you can talk about it for twelve hours at a stretch?" asked Eva.   
  
Max and Jondy, who always walked side by side to the mess hall, laughed. "Poor, sweet, naive Eva," said Jondy with a wicked grin.   
  
"Don't you remember, Eva?" Max enquired. "When we were younger and we lived in the dormitory, you used to come and talk with us too, all night, sometimes three nights in a row." She looked a little hurt that Eva didn't remember.   
  
"It was a long time ago."  
  
Jondy nudged her. "It was two measly years ago!"  
  
"And not all the time. I had to be invited."  
  
"You're kidding!" said Max. "Eva, we liked you more than anyone. Still do."  
  
"Well, what do you talk about?" asked Eva to the two younger girls.   
  
"Boys and guns, mostly," said Jondy, raising her eyebrows suggestively. She and Max cracked up and Eva laughed politely.   
  
Since the attempted escape in '09, Eva had been known as a troublemaker despite the fact that she rarely did anything out of the ordinary. Sometimes, in the woods or on training missions, when the X5s were alone and topics for conversation were scarce, they'd talk about the time Eva had nearly died.  
  
'It was scary, Eva,' Ben once said solemnly. 'You're not meant to die.'  
  
'I will someday,' Eva replied, touched that he thought so highly of her.   
  
Ben nodded. 'Yeah. But not for a very long time. I won't let you.'  
  
Eva missed Jack. Jack had been ten, a year older than she, but had acted like her little brother. He was the shortest out of all the boys, and she missed him so much sometimes it felt like she would die. She was close to Ben, though, and to Zack. She was kind to Jace and felt sorry for her because she was overlooked too. Unlike Eva, Jace was teased. Eva didn't get teased because she was so... well... nice. Eva was calm, collected and had good ideas, though she rarely voiced them.   
  
Even though Max and Jondy liked Eva enough, and Eva definitely liked them, they were not a Max-and-Jondy-and Eva. They were Max and Jondy. And sometimes Eva. It was just the way it was. Eva wasn't an Eva-and-Somebody-Else.   
  
Lydecker narrowed his eyes at her as she entered the mess hall. They thought she was a rebel. I'm not, Eva though indignantly. I just... I didn't want Max to die.   
  
And you wanted to be the hero for once, said the nasty little voice at the back of her brain. You selfish, foolish girl. You got what you deserved- a tarnished reputation and a disgusting scar in your arm that hurts in cold, rainy weather.   
  
Shut up, thought Eva. Eva would never have told anyone to shut up out loud. She was too mild-mannered. But sometimes her guilt got the best of her. And so what if I wanted to be the hero, Eva challenged it, blanching outwardly. She adopted a glassy look as she stumbled along the line, grabbing high-energy, high-fibre food without looking at it.   
  
Stupid girl, the voice hissed. Bad soldier. Stupid girl.   
  
"Stupid girl!" yelled a cafeteria lady. Eva came crashing down to earth and realised she'd walked into Max, sending her open carton of milk flying. Milk was pooling over the floor. Eva bit at her lip.   
  
"I'm sorry, ma'am, I just... I mean, I'll-"   
  
"No, go on with you. God knows you kids are useless at cleaning anything."  
  
Eva went to grab Max another carton of milk, but Max waved one under her nose. "Already taken care of, 766." Max grinned at her and took the only spare seat next to Jondy. Typical.   
  
She sat at the end of the table, next to Ben. Everyone was assembled. In silence, they began to eat.   
  
The doors banged open. Zane, sleepy-eyed and looking like he had tumbled out of bed fully-dressed, came flying in.   
  
"X5-205 reporting, sir!" he said to Lydecker, saluting.   
  
"Why are you so late, 205?" reprimanded the Colonel.   
  
"Sir, I overslept, sir!"  
  
"Make sure it doesn't happen again, 205."  
  
"It was a one-time thing, sir!" promised Zane, and as he went to sit down, he gave Eva a nasty look.   
  
Eva could have banged her head on the table. Usually, Zane was the one she had to wake up. He overslept a lot. He could stay up just as late as the others, just took more pleasure in sleeping in. He was always confident that Eva would enter his room and pull him out of bed, telling him to get a move on.   
  
Reluctantly, Zane took a seat next to Eva but did not speak to her, still annoyed with her.   
  
After breakfast, everyone reported to the quad for a briefing on the day's activities. A few hours on the firing range, martial arts training, no lunch, then free time, then showers and bed. You weren't supposed to be fooled by this. Free time meant you had a choice between telecommunications, weightlifting or sprints. Max always picked telecommunications because she was very good at that. Jace liked weightlifting and Brin liked sprints.   
  
Eva didn't really care. There was very little that she liked at Manticore.   
  
Eva was still unused to the wind stirring her hair. At eleven years old, the X5s had been allowed to grow their hair for the first time ever. Her hair was chin length and dead straight; not long enough to tie back yet.   
  
"At ease, soldiers!" yelled Lydecker, pacing up and down in front of them. Eva put her hands behind her back and held her head high. Eva took pride in the fact that she had excellent posture.   
  
The day was the same as every other day in Eva's life. I don't like this place, she thought. In fact... I hate it.   
  
She thought this climbing into her bunk at the end of the day. Ten-thirty at night. She'd always thought it was stupid to have bunk beds if only one person was going to be using the room.   
  
Guilt tore at her. Hate was encouraged to a point in Manticore. Hate the enemy, they told them. Hate your family. Hate yourselves, but don't dare hate Manticore.   
  
Hating Manticore does nothing, the nasty little voice reminded her. To hate Manticore is to hate the world.   
  
* * *   
  
At fourteen, Eva still didn't quite get this fuss that was made over boys, or, as Max and Jondy now insisted on saying now that they were a mature fourteen, men. It was the end of a hard day and the X5 females were heading into the showers.   
  
The showers were one of few places where the girls could actually be alone together. You had to punch your designation into a keypad at the doors- this was called 'signing in'. It was a form of surveillance. There was a rumour among the X5 sisters that they'd actually considered putting hidden video cameras in there, but Lydecker had blown his top. Eva had to say she agreed. After she'd heard that rumour, she had never quite been comfortable getting undressed in there for fear the cubicles were bugged.   
  
It was odd when Lydecker had his fatherly moments. He hadn't objected to shooting Eva when she was nine, but strongly opposed 'his' girls being constantly watched in the showers. Eva often wondered about Lydecker.   
  
She waited in line to sign in. The shower blocks were outside, nearby the kitchens. The boys' toilets and showers were across from the girls, in a separate building. She looked up at the stars and swatted away a mosquito.   
  
Krit and Syl were both at the ends of their lines. Soldiers stood at the keypads for signing in, not supervising the X5s at the ends of the lines. Eva watched them with a half-interest.   
  
Her jaw dropped slightly as she realised they were inconspicuously standing very close by each other. Very close indeed. They looked almost like-  
  
Eva punched in her designation and entered the shower block; closing the door behind her and waiting for Syl. Syl came in with a very self-satisfied look on her face. As the others walked around figuring out which showers would give them the best surroundings for conversation, Eva grabbed Syl's arm.   
  
"Hey Syl. You and Krit aren't..." (Eva tried to figure out how to put this delicately) "... involved, are you?"  
  
Syl blinked. "You didn't know?"  
  
"I- I guess not," said Eva. It was a question.  
  
Syl laughed. X5s didn't often laugh- the last time Eva had heard Syl laugh was a few months before, so it was an odd sound. "That's so cute!" she snickered, making Eva feel about two years old. Eva didn't know how she'd missed it. She was usually very perceptive.   
  
"But..." Eva didn't quite know how she was going to phrase this. "He's your brother! Your little brother!"  
  
"Not exactly. Max is the only one he's genetically related to, like Zane and Zack and I are related. We just used to have that sort of relationship."  
  
Eva decided not to comment on the past tense and shrugged.   
  
She stepped underneath the shower jet minutes later and sighed, sweeping her hair (which was now shoulder-length and plaited) onto her other shoulder. Ugh. She supposed it was OK, even good for Syl to like Krit... that way. But... ugh.   
  
My brother and sister, into each other, though Eva, dragging her fingers through her plait to unravel it. That is strange.   
  
"Eva!" called Brin from the next cubicle. "Can I borrow some shampoo?"  
  
"Knock yourself out," she said, reaching over and dropping it into Brin's hands. Brin swore loudly because she accidentally dropped it on the floor.   
  
"You should keep track of your things, Brinny," called Tinga. "You use twice as much shampoo as me, and I've got the most hair!"  
  
Tinga had near tantrums whenever they tried to cut her hair. Tinga was too mature for tantrums- all their lives she had been the mother figure, the oldest female X5- but had tried to break a soldier's arm when he'd politely suggested that her hair needed trimming. It was widely thought that Tinga was perhaps the sanest out of the Manticore X5s...  
  
Or not.   
  
"Yeah, Brinny," repeated Jondy with a laugh. Brin threw a bar of soap at her. Tinga was the only one allowed to call Brin by a nickname. Tinga was special.   
  
When Eva was brushing her teeth a few minutes later, a serious conversational topic was brought up. "I'm concerned about Ben," said Max.   
  
"Why?"  
  
"I was in his room and I found a picture pinned up beside his bed. Kinda hidden, but I bet you could see it if you lay on his bed and put your head on the pillow."  
  
There were some grins.   
  
"Of who?" asked Jondy thickly through a mouthful of toothpaste.   
  
"The Blue Lady," Max said quietly.   
  
Abruptly, from her lofty perch on the sinks, Jondy spat into a basin, narrowly missing Jace's hand. Jace glared at her. Jace had almost never smiled in her life.   
  
"The Blue Lady?" repeated Brin, emerging from her shower cubicle fully dressed.   
  
"I don't believe in Her any more," said Amna.  
  
"I never did," volunteered Jace.   
  
Eva was ashamed to admit but sometimes... sort of... she still believed a little bit in the Lady. It was hard to let go of the notion that some adult, somewhere might unconditionally love her. It was a very pretty thought.   
  
"I'm worried," Max confessed. "He's so quiet... ever noticed that?"  
  
"He was always quiet," said Cloe fairly.   
  
"He just kind of reaches out to some," Eva said suddenly. "I think he misses Jack as much as I do."  
  
Everyone looked at Eva.   
  
"That's a surprise," said Jondy evenly. "You haven't even said his name in years."  
  
"It's easier for me to forget."  
  
"But why-" begins Jondy, but a low voice cuts in.   
  
"Leave her alone."  
  
It was Jace, with her characteristic scowl.   
  
"I-"  
  
"Shut up," said Jace in a low voice. "She doesn't want to talk, so leave her alone."  
  
Jondy shrugged and they began to talk again.   
  
Sleep. Eva was in bed, awake with closed eyes. The nasty voice of guilt was back.   
  
Remember, it said.   
  
I don't want to remember.   
  
You have to. Remember how they dragged him away, Eva? How you just stood there, watching him get taken away.   
  
I was a child. I was nine years old.   
  
How can you say that, the voice, neither male nor female, snarled at her. You were never a child.   
  
I was young. I was afraid. I was nine years old.   
  
That accounts for nothing, Eva. When you were nine you could have killed every single guard in there before they had a chance to blink. At seven you could have broken Jack out of the infirmary and hotwired an SUV to escape together. Good God, Eva, at five years old you could have saved him. But at nine, when you could have done the most, you did nothing. It's your fault.   
  
If it's my fault, she thought, gritting her teeth, because I didn't kill the guards and rescue him, then everyone else in that room is just as much to blame as me.   
  
No, Eva, whatever you tell yourself, it's all your fault. Jack loved you. He respected you. Remember how you could have sworn he looked at you when they were taking him away? He wanted you to help him. But you didn't, Eva-  
  
"Shut up." Eva said this aloud. She turned over onto her stomach and put her pillow on her head, pressing her face into her mattress.   
  
It's all your fault.  
  
"Shut the hell up." Eva said this just a tiny bit louder.   
  
Admit it.   
  
"No, it's not- shut up! Just shut up..." moaned Eva.   
  
"Eva?" called a soft voice from the next room. "Are you OK?"  
  
"Shut up, just shut up..." Eva was crying by then.   
  
You didn't save him, and he's gone forever, taunted the guilty voice.   
  
There was a door opening and closing, and hesitant footsteps. "I'm coming in," said the voice, which belonged to Ben.   
  
Murderer...  
  
Eva sat up, her hair tousled, crying a little. "What about the guards?"  
  
"None there. They must've gone for coffee or something. They're pushovers." Ben paused. "What's wrong?"  
  
"I can't tell you."  
  
"I'm opening up to you here, Eva. What's wrong? Tell your big brother."  
  
She smiled in spite of herself. "Come off it, Ben, you're not that much older."  
  
"Mind telling me yet?"  
  
"I can't. You'll hate me."  
  
"I hate that which I can't explain. Give me the smallest hint and I can try to explain it."  
  
"Jack."  
  
There was a very tense pause. Ben sat down next to her. "Can I have another hint?"  
  
"I don't want to remember him."  
  
Ben tensed and then glared at her. "That's stupid, Eva."  
  
"I know... I don't want to remember what I did to him."  
  
"What did you do?"  
  
"I let him die."  
  
"Eva-"  
  
"I'm a bad person."  
  
"Nobody's perfect." Ben said this lamely.   
  
"We're supposed to be."  
  
* * *   
  
"BEN!" screamed Eva, aged seventeen. "BEN, NO!"  
  
The X5s had been sent to track down Ben, who had gone AWOL on his last mission. They had tracked him to a back alley in Queens, where Eva and Tinga had stumbled across him almost by accident. He stood, panting, over a man he'd beaten half to death.   
  
Both tackled him as he tried to run off. Max skidded into the alley casually swinging a pistol, goggling at Ben, Eva and Tinga. For the last week she'd been faking an English accent on a whim while Jondy had been pretending to be Canadian. It was just one of those things they liked to do.   
  
Ben was fighting them. "Max?" called Tinga, hitting him upside the head.   
  
"Got your back," said Max, and sped over, pressing the gun into Ben's temple. "What the hell are you doing, soldier?" she asked harshly. Tinga shook him. Eva let go and backed away slightly.   
  
"No..." he said, and Tinga kicked him roughly in the stomach, forcing him onto his knees. "Let me go... She wants me to do this for Her, She needs it..."  
  
"Who?" Eva couldn't help but ask.   
  
"The Blue Lady."  
  
Tinga looked incredulously at her brother. "The Blue Lady?"  
  
Ben nodded and spoke breathlessly. "To make Her strong."  
  
"The Blue Lady! Come on, Ben. We made Her up."  
  
"Don't say that, Max. Don't ever say that." He gave her a pleading look, begging her to stop.   
  
Max continued recklessly, "Normal kids had the tooth fairy. We had Her."  
  
"She's real," he protested.   
  
"Then why didn't She protect us? Why didn't She protect Jack?"   
  
"Because we failed Her," Ben told his sisters bluntly.   
  
"Or Eva?" said Max, gesturing to Eva's scar, which was plainly visible. She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt.  
  
"Because we weren't strong enough."  
  
"Like hell we weren't. We've survived, haven't we?"  
  
Ben looked up at them. "We haven't got any hope without Her."  
  
Zack appeared, flanked by Syl and Jace. "Where are the others?" asked Tinga, fighting to restrain Ben.   
  
"Let me go!" ranted Ben.   
  
Zack smacked him upside the head. "Shut up, 493. You're in a hell of a lot of trouble." To Tinga, he said, "Zane, Krit, Brin- all of them are waiting with the SUV."  
  
Eva noted numbly that Zack had called Ben by his designation. Such a thing was unheard of if one was sure they couldn't be heard. Zack was furious.   
  
Zack dragged Ben away and tersely called, "Come on!" to the three females.   
  
Max frowned. "I have the weirdest feeling that I haven't had that conversation with Ben yet."  
  
"So do I," said Tinga hesitantly.   
  
Eva tried to be flippant. "I've heard of deja vu, but that is just ridiculous."  
  
"Well, you're dead to spirituality, Eva," said Max, and she began to jog after Zack.   
  
* * *   
  
Eva sat on the hood of an SUV holding a machine gun and wearing civilian apparel. It was sunset. She, nineteen, was listening to Zane rave beside her as she stared at the run-down building where the hostages were being held. "This is totally unnecessary," he muttered. "We are the X5 class. We were created in a Manticore laboratory and raised in a barracks, efficiently trained to fight and kill since childhood. We individually represent billions of tax dollars apiece. We are meant to never be seen. A last resort. They call us in for a sky-high fee if things are really getting ugly. We're talkin' mass panic, evacuation of civilians, a full-scale nuclear war. And what are we doing? We're sitting around watching hostage negotiations from across a city street."  
  
"It could get ugly," she said fairly.   
  
"Riiiiight, and Jace is pregnant with my kid." Zane and Jace didn't like each other. At all.   
  
Eva nudged him warningly and then leant her head toward him. "You're good with words, you know. Like Ben."  
  
"What words? He's only spoken in dire emergencies these past few years ever since you caught him on his little killing spree, Eva."  
  
Jondy walked over, slamming a crate of grenades onto the hood of the truck. Zane and Eva scooted apart. "Whispering sweet nothings, are we? Don't mind me, I'm just counting firearms. I was counting nearby Syl and Krit, but they're getting all romantic and that sickens me. Please continue. I just pray that when I move on I don't come across Tinga making flirty eyes at Ben."  
  
"We're not like that," said Eva, putting down her machine gun and hugging her knees.   
  
Zane leaned back to catch the last rays of the sun. He opened one eye. "Huh? Eva, honey, I'm heartbroken. What if those crazies in there burst out and shot me? I'd die with those words."  
  
"I doubt that," interjected Jondy, who was sorting grenades into two piles.   
  
"You never know when someone you love is gonna die," said Zane, looking very hard at Eva.   
  
"Why the sudden fascination with death, Zane? Planning a suicide anytime soon?" asked Brin, arriving.   
  
"Not in a million years. I love life," said Zane.   
  
Brin leaned against the SUV, smiling grimly. "C'mon, all. We're going to a bar."  
  
"A... bar?" asked Eva, this being an almost foreign word to her.   
  
"Yes, Eva, a bar. An establishment that sells alcoholic beverages to those of legal age. Coming?"  
  
"I will if Zane will."  
  
"Oooooh!" said Jondy, with her familiar wicked grin.   
  
Eva and Zane ignored her. Zane asked, "Who's 'we', Brin?"  
  
"Tinga, Ben, Syl, Krit, Max, Zack and Jace. And me. And you three."  
  
Zane's eyes widened. "You've got Jace agreeing to accompany you to a BAR?"  
  
"Well. She doesn't know where we're going."  
  
Zane groaned. "Why the hell did you have to invite her? She'll ruin everything."  
  
Brin scowled. She was one of few who could keep Zane in line. "Look at me, I'm Zane, I'm so mature," she mimicked.   
  
Zane sighed and jumped off the hood of the vehicle. "If we get our asses busted by Jace or anyone, it was your idea, Brin."  
  
"Deal. Let's go!"  
  
Zane offered Eva a hand. "You heard what she said, honey."  
  
Eva pulled him a little closer to her to reprimand him as they walked after Brin and Jondy. "Why are you doing this?"  
  
"It's fun," he said simply.   
  
"It's embarrassing!" she retorted.  
  
Jondy winked at her and she let go of Zane, blushing.   
  
They queued outside a bar. Someone, a burly man in his thirties with muscles that put Zack to shame manned the door, but a smile from Max and a nod from Jondy and a quick fake lip-twitch of a smile from Jace and they were in. Jace looked uneasy as they took seats at a table. She hated not to follow the rules.   
  
"They've got this thing called carry-okey," said Syl with interest, reading a sign over the bar as Max ordered a pitcher of beer for herself, Brin and Jondy. The bartender took one look at her and dryly told her to dream on. "Sounds tasty."  
  
"What's that?" asked Zack.   
  
"Only the weirdest word I've ever heard in my life," said someone.   
  
Ben said slowly, "I know. It's this thing where you get up on a stage and show everyone that you can't sing by singing into a microphone."  
  
"Could be a laugh as long as we're posing as normal people."  
  
"Who wants to go first? Brinny?" This was Tinga.   
  
Brin shook her head. "I fronted as a lounge singer for a mission when I was fifteen, remember, Tinga? They booed me off the stage."  
  
Tinga giggled. "It was kind of... hilarious, baby sister." Brin pretended to smack her.   
  
"I will," said Eva very softly. Everyone looked at her. "I can sing. A little."  
  
"Well, how 'bout that?" said Zane with a laugh. "Eva the Singing Wonder, troops! Go on!"  
  
They pushed Eva out of her seat and up to the mike, yelling for her to start.   
  
She looked around the bar, to Zane grinning at her and Ben's small, indulgent half-smile. And then to all the bored looking people who couldn't care less. She felt afraid.   
  
"You'll have to forgive me," she whispered into the microphone. "I'm nervous."  
  
Eva flipped through the book of songs and found one she knew- it was the one the old guard had used to sing along with when he played the tape on his radio. She knew it off by heart but had never sang it aloud.   
  
She took a deep breath.   
  
"I'm not in love," she sang. There was whooping from the table of X5s. "So don't forget it's just a silly phase I'm going through. And just because I call you up, don't get me wrong. Don't think you've got it made. I'm not in love- no, no. It's because..." She waited, tense, for the instrumental bit she'd known well to end. That guard, he'd loved this song.   
  
There was silence. Her family had stopped cheering and instead sat mesmerised. Eva didn't know what the big fuss was- her voice, although sweet, wasn't very strong.   
  
The part for singing began again. "I'd like to see you, but then again, it doesn't mean you mean that much to me. So if I call you, don't make a fuss. Don't tell your friends about the two of us. I'm not in love- no, no. It's because..."  
  
"Sing it, girl!" yelled Krit, who was shushed.   
  
Eva looked to Ben as she sang the next part, thinking of Max's concern with him... thinking of their belief in the Blue Lady. Did she still believe?   
  
Did he still have that picture, still pray to it to save him from this hell?   
  
"I keep your picture upon the wall. It hides a nasty stain that's lying there. So don't you ask me to give it back. I know you know it doesn't mean that much to me. I'm not in love- no, no. It's because..."  
  
"She's good," remarked Syl.   
  
Eva's voice wasn't quaking so much. She was feeling a kind of... finality. "Oooooh, you'll wait a long time for me! Oooooh, you'll wait a long time. Oooooh, you'll wait a long time for me! Oooooh, you'll wait a long time."  
  
Zane was giving her a thumbs-up. "Go on!" he yelled.   
  
She reached the final verse. "I'm not in love, so don't forget it's just a silly phase I'm going through. And just because I call you up, don't get me wrong. Don't think you've got it made. I'm not in love, I'm not in love..."  
  
Shaking all over, she returned to her seat. At first, they tried to make her return. "Sing another one! You're in the zone, my sista!" implored Max.   
  
"No," said Eva firmly, sitting down. "I don't think my health could take it."  
  
Eva was characteristically quiet for a long while. The way they had looked at her while she'd sang...  
  
She supposed that in some strange way, she'd achieved her childhood dream... to be the hero for once. They'd recognised her, not as a troublemaker or a reserved human being but as something special.   
  
They crept back after a few hours, back to the camp made across the street from the silent building. Soldiers waited in trucks to transport them back to Manticore. And suddenly-  
  
Even Eva didn't know why she did it. But she darted in front of Zack, looking up at him. "Wait."  
  
"What is it, Eva?"  
  
"Let's escape."  
  
Silence. A few nervous laughs.   
  
"You're joking, aren't you?"  
  
"I am not. Come on. Let's just run for it, now, all of us. They'll never catch up."  
  
There was a long pause. "Could be fun," said Max solemnly. Max lived for fun.   
  
"I'm in."  
  
"I'm in."  
  
"So am I."  
  
"I'm in."  
  
"I'm in."  
  
"Yeah... yeah."  
  
"I think the Lady wants it this way," said Ben softly.   
  
Everyone agreed, but one voice said nothing.  
  
"Come on," said Zack.   
  
They ran. Eva thought this to be the weirdest thing that had ever happened to her. She'd daydreamed about breaking the metaphorical chains of oppression all her life, but to actually do it... that was a different story.  
  
Her scar hurt. There was rain. The X5s were drenched, and sprinted silently through the streets.   
  
Then-  
  
Then-  
  
Then-  
  
A screech of brakes. An SUV with two soldiers inside, their faces darkened and blank to Eva, shot out in front of them. The X5s scattered into separate parts of the street.   
  
One man jumped from the front passenger seat. Just two X5s stood vulnerable in the centre of the street- Jace and Eva.   
  
Max furiously beckoned Jace from the pavement, striking a fighting stance. Jace voluntarily went with him. Back to Hell. When the other soldier was attacked, the SUV drove away with Jace inside.   
  
Eva grabbed the gun of the other man and knocked him out with it. The others ran. Only Max lingered.   
  
"Get a move on, Eva!"  
  
"Don't worry!"  
  
"Come ON!" Max disappeared. The rain pooled about Eva's ankles.   
  
"I won't ever leave you," she said softly, and held her head up to meet the rain and stars. Somehow, Eva knew what had to be done.  
  
And in some far-off celestial body with complete control over reality, this scene and one we know well, of a free band of X5s and a dead Eva, become one. The cycle is complete.   
  
In that same heavenly place, the faces of a child Eva who was shot through the heart and an adult Eva who lived merge. Both and one look down on the X5s, who are finally escaping, the way they did when a child Eva lost her life.   
  
Max ran, imagining footsteps behind her and not even realising her own unease as they faded. She stopped, leaning against a cracked store window. Jondy grinned at her. "We made it!" she raved. "We escaped Manticore!"  
  
Max smiled at her sister and looked around. She'd heard phantom footsteps.   
  
"Where's Eva?"  
  
* * * * *   
  
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue. 'I'm Not In Love' belongs to 10cc and their record company.   
  
NOTE: That, my friends, was the most weird and way-out fic I've ever written. Eva disappears from the earth in order to complete her fate? Featuring KARAOKE and THE DISEMBODIED VOICE OF GUILT?! Good God. It was the best I could come up with, people!  
  
I love that 10cc song though. Download sometime, you people. It's really old, like, Seventies, but it's so much FUN. I can sing it off by heart because I downloaded it to listen to whilst writing the karaoke scene. Incredibly old, but WONDERFUL.  
  
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, presenting The Hermione Granger Fan Club, the first writer she's ever known to have written a somewhat poignant karaoke scene in a DRAMA story with a surreal ending since she watched 'A Life Less Ordinary'. (Which I love)  
  
Oh, and the voice Eva hears is meant to symbolise guilt, for those who ignored those explanations. Eva isn't schizophrenic or something, just introverted and missing Jack heaps. 


End file.
